A new state law requires those who buy drain cleaners and other caustic substances to provide photo identification and sign a log. It’s getting a rough reception from customers and merchants alike although perhaps none more than a cashier at Schroeder’s True Value Hardware in Lombard. “They’re not very happy about it at all,” said Don Schroeder, one of the store’s owners. …The law, which took effect Sunday, requires those who seek to buy caustic or noxious substances, except for batteries, to provide government-issued photo identification that shows their name and date of birth. The cashier then must log the name and address, the date and time of the purchase, the type of product, the brand and even the net weight. …Jewel-Osco has removed the few items it carried from its shelves, but Schroeder said he does not have that option as a hardware store. He said he does not believe that the precautions written into the bill will prevent such crimes from occurring. “How are they going to find out, by asking every customer, what kid might have done that? It’s not going to solve any problems,” Schroeder said. “It’s not going to cure anything.”

The legislation is disliked by both businesses and consumers, so one might be tempted to think it will be repealed.

But that’s a silly assumption. You have to remember that the bureaucrats in charge of enforcing the law doubtlessly like having another excuse for bigger budgets.

“The legislation is disliked by both businesses and consumers, so one might be tempted to think it will be repealed.”

The percentage of the population that buys such substances even when combined with the few merchants who sell such substances are probably still a minority of the population. Therefore the law will probably stand, especially since those encharged of making and enforcing the law have a vested interest in more-law, as Mr. Mitchell points out.

The bottom line is that vote is binary but consequences are quantitative. Therefore so long as the majority perceives that they stand to gain anything at all from the legislation, however small the gain may be, the law stands, Socrates drinks the hemlock, Jewish prophets get crucified etc.

There is only one thing that technically stands in the way of such behavior. It is that two centuries old contract which Americans once led the world in signing up to — which says that we all promise that Jim and Joe will not gang up against Jack to ban his light bulb only to have Jack and Joe gang up against Jim to ban his marriage only to have Jim and Jack gang up against Joe to ban his pot etc.

… but heck we all know what happened to that document, and thus Americans, under the normal human pressures of primal collectivism — once useful but self-destructive in a modern rapidly evolving world — squandered their historical fortune of having discovered a new sparsely populated continent fortuitously seeded by an English enlightment that never reached majoritarian status in the Old-Continent.

In summary, Americans lost their aberrant exceptionalism. Their out of line prosperity will thus inevitably follow in decline shortly. Soon all that will be left is the world renowned mediocrity of the Average American under French level incentives to produce. Boy, who in the world will be able to stand up to competition from such a production juggernaut!

The funny thing is that the same people demanding that you show government supplied ID to buy Liquid Plumber would probably be terribly offended at the notion that someone should have to supply ID to vote. One is reasonable and the other is not, and the state-ists can’t discern which is which.

We all need to remember that the real fault in all of this lies with the IDIOTS who voted these morons into office. They were morons before they were elected. Someone of less intelligence must have felt they would make a good elected official. Guess who that person of lesser intelligence must be…